Chapter Thirty-Eight

JAMES FOLLOWED VINCE and the newly expanded Watch through the streets of Port Knot. Vince had left Crabmeat with Frank, Clive, and a handful of former Clockbreakers to guard the siege engine and the captive Gunbrides.

Vince led them through buildings, under bridges, up steps, and along winding side streets. When they reached Littletar’s Emporium, he split them into two groups. One led by him, one led by Celeste, much to James’s annoyance. “I’m perfectly capable of commanding a bunch of young ruffians.”

“Want you where I can keep my eye on you,” Vince said.

Celeste took her troops into a nearby tavern and led them up to the rooftops. When she was in position, she leaned over the roof and waved.

“Move,” Vince said. Keeping his head low, he drew his octopus-handled sword and led the way inside.

The bazaar stood dark and silent. James and Vince crept through the shop floor and across to the staircase. James grabbed Vince’s arm. Without a word, he pointed up. Muffled voices. Two, at least.

Slowly, they crept upstairs, never sharing the same step, careful not to make any noise. By the third floor, the voices had become louder and clearer.

Vince leaned in and whispered into James’s ear, “Lambshead and Littletar.” The warmth of his breath made James’s skin tingle. He tried to ignore it.

At the top of the stairs, they found the first body. A woman, shot through the chest. Two men lay behind her and three more women behind them. All Pennymen, Vince whispered to him. All shot through the heart. That floor of the emporium had been given over to colourful horological animals. Birds and bats perched in cages. Monkeys and frogs hung from beams. Dogs and cats slept on heavy cabinets replete with drawers. Each automaton moved slightly, powered by its internal clockworks and springs. Heads clicked and turned, and jaws ticked as they opened. Chests whirred as they heaved and claws scraped as they flexed. Copper skins and enamel eyes glinted in the lantern light.

James’s face flushed red when he realised Lambshead was wearing an ill-fitting C.T.C. uniform. He wanted to rush over and strip it from him, the way he had no doubt stripped it from the corpse of one of James’s Sentinels.

In the centre of the room, a handful of Gunbrides encircled Lambshead and, James assumed, Fortitude Littletar.

On his knees, Littletar held his blood-soaked sleeve. “Thought you’d lost your weapon in Gull’s Reach.”

Lambshead laughed and threw his arm around the shoulders of a red-haired girl with freckles. “So did I! But gentle Kat Hookway here rescued her and kept her safe until we could be reunited. And I will be eternally grateful.”

Kat Hookway smiled and tilted her head back.

Littletar winced and shivered. “Can’t believe you did all this just to get at me.”

Lambshead paced the floor, limping from his injury at Gull’s Reach and rubbing his chin on the back of his hand. The hatchet head at the end of his musket dripped with blood. “I didn’t do it. No, this was all the work of that greencoat, Hancock.”

Vince turned to James, who scowled. His shoulders dropped, and he breathed heavily through his nose. It was true. All of it. His most trusted advisor, his best officer, his…friend…had lied to him.

“Hancock wanted a distraction so I gave her the biggest one I could find.” Lambshead held open his uniform coat.

It must have been Perty’s, James realised. She had swapped her uniform for his clothes. She’d helped him break into C.T.C. headquarters and steal the siege engine.

“And since I was causing a commotion anyway,” Lambshead said, “I thought I might as well set my own plans in motion. This little system of yours, this Shadow Council, was never going to work in the long run. We all knew that going in.”

Littletar shrugged and actually laughed. “I was going to get Celeste first. Then you. I suppose you’ve already gotten to her?”

Lambshead winced as he dropped to his haunches, his pepper-box musket swinging between his legs. “I’m saving her for last.” He raised his pistol, but in a flash, Littletar grabbed it and pulled. Lambshead snarled, blobs of spit flying from his mouth. “I told you never to touch Summersong!” He pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the building. Littletar fell to the floor, dead.

Still reeling from the revelation about Perty, James flinched, knocking his flintlock against a bannister. Lambshead’s Gunbrides spotted them and opened fire. James and Vince both dove for cover behind thick cabinets.

Lambshead howled at him. “You’re a dead man, Vince!”

About them, musket shot punched holes in the metal animals. Creatures fell from the ceiling, from the shelves and clattered onto the floor, the din of their parts scattering mixing with the roar of the flintlocks.

“Listen to him, Mr Lambshead.” Walter held a pistol to Lambshead’s back. James hadn’t seen or heard Walter entering the room. He must have been a very skilled thief indeed.

“Don’t move.” Celeste held her weapon to the head of the farthest Gunbride.

Ruth, Sorcha, and Flowers filed out behind her, each pointing their muskets at a Gunbride. Walter stepped back as Lambshead turned round and round, unsure who to face.

He screamed in frustration, baring his teeth. “Celeste! You’re with him? After everything he did?”

“He didn’t try to burn my people alive! Your lot killed Merlin, shot her dead in the road like she was nothing! They knew her!”

The Gunbrides stood hunched, fingers flexing on the grips of their weapons. One wrong move now would get them all killed—gang and Watch alike.

James kept his musket pointed squarely at Lambshead.

Vince lowered his untipped sword and stepped forward, raising his voice. “Want to make you an offer. All of you. Surrender now. Won’t be sent to gaolhouse. Asylum instead. For a time.”

A short, prematurely balding man with hairy knuckles and a purple gemstone earring spoke first. “Asylum? What for?”

“Need help, Talan. All of you. Had your brains turned to mush by Lambshead. Not seeing things clearly. Asylum doctors can help you.”

“Then what?” Talan asked.

“Then you join my Watch. Stand with me again.”

Lambshead laughed, sending a spray of spittle into the air.

Vince ignored him. “Made Lambshead an offer. Back in Gull’s Reach. Gave him a way out. Didn’t take it. Now it’s too late. No walking away from what you did today. Need to pay your debts to society. All of you. Either with me or in the gaolhouse.”

Kat Hookway wobbled. Her eyes darted back and forth, from Lambshead to Vince and back again. She held her pepper-box musket with both hands, though it appeared much too large and heavy for her. James’s aim hadn’t wavered from Lambshead the entire time, but if Ms Hookway’s finger slipped, someone would be killed.

“Why should we trust you?” Talan asked. “You turned your back on us once before.”

“Recruited you,” Vince said. “Some of the rest of you too. Offered you all a way to earn money. Doing it again now. But honestly this time. Better on this side, trust me. Won’t let you down again. Won’t abandon you again. Have my word.”

James squinted at him. “I thought you wanted to get away from all of this?”

“Did,” Vince said. “Can’t though. Fooling myself to think otherwise. Have a responsibility to them. To all of them. Made my bed, have to lie in it.”

The man Vince called Talan set his weapon on the floor and nodded to the other Gunbrides to do the same.

Lambshead moved to strike him, but Ruth’s musket made him reconsider. “You’re not seriously going to accept this?” Lambshead asked. “You can’t trust him!”

Talan, hands raised, knitted his brow. “But it’s Vince.”

The vein on Lambshead’s brow bulged as if to pop. His hand became a claw, trying to throttle Vince across the room. “You think I’ve turned their brains to mush? Look at the hold you have over them! You click your fingers, and they come running! I should shoot you in the face, show them you’re just as human as the rest of us.”

“Enough now, Lambshead,” Vince said. “No more of this. Drop your musket.”

“I don’t take orders from you any longer!” Despite the injury James had given him, Lambshead moved quick as a cat and jumped clear through the glass of a nearby window.

James fired, missing Lambshead but taking the head from a tin parrot. Kat Hookway raised her pistol and fired, obliterating a clockwork elephant. Vince dashed out of the window after Lambshead, landing on a flat lower roof. James landed heavily behind him. They gave chase across the rooftop while a chorus of muskets rang out in the emporium.

THE TOWN CLOCK tower chimed as James huffed and puffed his way across the flat roof. Lambshead forced open a glass-panelled door leading to a wide attic filled with plants. He levelled his musket and fired. The shot missed Vince by inches and took a chunk out of the chimney pot behind him. James hid and refilled his flintlock.

Lambshead’s eyes were wide and unblinking. Every vein in his neck stood out. “I looked up to you more than anyone else did, but nothing I did was ever good enough.” He fired again and again. The revolving barrels of Summersong whirred between each shot. “You overlooked me at every turn.”

"Not true,” Vince said. “Were one of the best. Most promising.”

“But it’s Celeste you went running to first to fill out your little Watch.”

He ran to the other side of the attic, ducking behind some broad-leafed plants.

“Not making sense,” Vince said. “Hardly likely to recruit you. Needed recruits to fight you.”

“And had it been the other way around, had Celeste and her people been out there in the siege engine, would you have come to me for help?”

Vince hesitated.

“Exactly,” Lambshead said.

While they argued, James crept around the attic and saw his chance. From behind a bushy plant, he stood, raised his weapon, and fired. It clicked. Nothing happened. Lambshead darted toward him, swatting the flintlock from his hand with one swipe of Summersong’s hatchet. James braced himself, but before Lambshead could strike, Vince landed on him.

Vince chopped the air with his octopus sword but Lambshead moved too quickly. He raised Summersong in time to catch the hatchet on Vince’s blade. Again and again, Vince lashed out, but each time Lambshead’s hatchet bayonet deflected the blow. James lunged at him but the younger and faster Lambshead skirted away, kicking James in the belly and laying him out on the floor.

“James!” Vince roared at the top of his lungs.

Lambshead laughed. “That’s what comes from having such a big target.”

James lay on his back, holding his stomach and seeing stars. Again and again, Vince slashed his sword, harder and harder each time. He caught Lambshead on the hand, and Summersong clattered to the floor. Lambshead backed away, covering his face as Vince slashed his clothes, his arms. With a howl, Vince suddenly threw his blade away and began battering Lambshead with his enormous, heavy fists. They became a blur as they popped cartilage and snapped bone.

Lambshead’s face turned red and then purple. Vince stopped and backed away, shaking the blood from his hands. Lambshead quivered and dragged himself through the glass attic door and outside to the flat roof. He hugged a chimney stack, frightening away a perched gull. With broken fingers, he clawed at the bricks, trying to stand.

“Done now,” Vince said. “No more, Lambshead.” He followed Lambshead outside. Pillars of black smoke rose higher and higher across the town.

“Done when I sa-say we’re done,” Lambshead said. “Wh-why do you always get to set the rules?”

“Because Port Knot is mine. Always has been. Only one who can control it. Only one who can steer it. Took my hands off the reins and look what happened. Never again.” Vince’s breathing had become heavier as he spoke. “Give it up. Not too late to make amends.”

Lambshead laughed through broken teeth. “I’ll never work for you again, you monster. You brute. You animal. Throw me in the gaolhouse. I don’t care. How long do you think it can hold me? I’ll be out in no time. And then I’m coming after you, old man. And Celeste. And the rest of your little Watch. One by one, I’ll get all of you. S-sooner or later, I’ll get you all.”

A shot rang out, echoing across the rooftops. Lambshead doubled over and fell into a heap of ruined flesh.

Leaning against the attic doorway, James lowered Summersong. “I rather think you won’t.”

“No!” Vince knelt next to Lambshead. “Shouldn’t have done this to you. Should have let you live your own life. Hugo, I’m sorry.”

Lambshead’s eyelids had swollen so much he couldn’t open them. His words hissed out through puffed and split lips. “I don’t…don’t care. If there was any justice you’d be lying here instead of me. You’re poison, old man. A vish…a vicious wolf…playing house. I hope you never know a moment’s…a moment’s peace.” His breath rattled and wheezed, and then it stopped altogether.

Vince stood, shaking, his face red. He rushed towards James in a perfect rage. Before James could raise Summersong, Vince grabbed him by the shirt and screamed into his face. “Didn’t have to kill him!” James had never before seen that look in Vince’s eye. “Didn’t deserve to die like this! Wanted him to have a chance too! Damned muskets—all they do is take and take!”

James’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed Vince’s wrist. “Hugo Lambshead was a killer! A dyed-in-the-wool killer! It was always going to end this way for him.”

“Wasn’t a threat!”

Sorcha and Celeste approached across the rooftop, slowly.

“Lambshead was always a threat,” Celeste said. “Captain Godgrave did the town a favour.” She crouched by Lambshead’s body, checking for signs of life. “And frankly, if he didn’t kill him, I would have. For Merlin.”

Vince’s whole body trembled with fury. “People keep dying! People I took in. People I hurt. People I damaged. All end up dead. Poisoned their lives, their minds, their hearts!” He dropped James and turned away. He wiped his hands on his claret overcoat, cleaning the blood from them. Lambshead’s blood. He stalked back and forth across the flat roof, his cheeks wet, his arms shaking, his hands stretched and flexing uncontrollably. “Everything he did, my fault—”

James reached out to him. “It wasn’t your fault, Vince!”

“Responsibility, then!”

James backed away from him, wide-eyed and scared. He tightened his grip on Summersong.

“Responsibility! Mine! Failed him then. Failed him now.” He rubbed his face, marking his snowy white beard with red streaks. He rubbed the tears from his eyes, knocking off his patch and revealing a scarred eye, intact but grey and clouded as an angry winter’s sky.

“You told me the town had changed,” James said. “That compromises had to be made.”

“Not this.”

“Yes, this! You think you’re responsible? Well, I had a chance to kill him in Gull’s Reach, and I didn’t. So everyone out there, all those bodies on the streets, they are my responsibility. My Sentinels and the townsfolk alike. You are not in charge of the whole world. I made the decision to shoot him, and I stand by it.”

Vince sank to his knees. “Needed to help him. Thought if someone gave him a chance…”

“You beat the man half to death with your bare hands, Vince. You knew—you knew—he couldn’t be saved. Not everyone can.”

Vince shook his head. “Don’t believe that. Can’t.”

“Why not? Why is it so hard to accept?”

James lay his hand on Vince’s shoulder as Vince’s breathing grew heavier and heavier by the second.

Sorcha put herself in front of Vince. “Look at me. Look, will you? You’re neither poison nor a wild animal. If you were, sure, you wouldn’t care so much.” She lifted his eyepatch, wiping some dirt from it, and placed it back on his head.

Vince’s voice had become a whisper, clanking and dry. “Hurts. Knowing the pain I caused.”

“I know it does,” James said, helping Vince to his feet.

They stood facing each other. James clamped his hand on the side of Vince’s face. He rubbed his thumb along Vince’s cheek.

“You can’t change what’s done,” James said. “You’re facing it, head-on. That’s more than most people would do. More than most people could do.”

“Lambshead was no worse than me,” Vince said, the words catching in his throat. “Didn’t deserve a chance, but somehow I do? Things I’ve done, people I’ve hurt…it’s… Why did I deserve a chance to pick myself out of the muck, James? Why me but not him?”

“Why did you deserve a chance? The answer is simple.” James pulled him in close, held him tightly, and looked him square in the eye. “It’s because you wanted one.”